1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to semiconductor wafer processing and, more particularly, to apparatuses and techniques for more efficiently applying and removing fluids from wafer surfaces while reducing contamination and decreasing wafer processing costs.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the semiconductor chip fabrication process, it is well-known that there is a need to process a wafer using operations such as cleaning and drying. In each of these types of operations, there is a need to effectively apply and remove fluids for the wafer operation process.
For example, wafer cleaning may have to be conducted where a fabrication operation has been performed that leaves unwanted residues on the surfaces of wafers. Examples of such a fabrication operation include plasma etching (e.g., tungsten etch back (WEB)) and chemical mechanical polishing (CMP). In CMP, a wafer is placed in a holder which pushes a wafer surface against a rolling conveyor belt. This conveyor belt uses a slurry which consists of chemicals and abrasive materials to cause the polishing. Unfortunately, this process tends to leave an accumulation of slurry particles and residues at the wafer surface. If left on the wafer, the unwanted residual material and particles may cause, among other things, defects such as scratches on the wafer surface and inappropriate interactions between metallization features. In some cases, such defects may cause devices on the wafer to become inoperable. In order to avoid the undue costs of discarding wafers having inoperable devices, it is therefore necessary to clean the wafer adequately yet efficiently after fabrication operations that leave unwanted residues.
After a wafer has been wet cleaned, the wafer must be dried effectively to prevent water or cleaning fluid remnants from leaving residues on the wafer. If the cleaning fluid on the wafer surface is allowed to evaporate, as usually happens when droplets form, residues or contaminants previously dissolved in the cleaning fluid will remain on the wafer surface after evaporation (e.g., and form water spots). To prevent evaporation from taking place, the cleaning fluid must be removed as quickly as possible without the formation of droplets on the wafer surface. In an attempt to accomplish this, one of several different drying techniques are employed such as spin drying, IPA, or Marangoni drying. All of these drying techniques utilize some form of a moving liquid/gas interface on a wafer surface which, if properly maintained, results in drying of a wafer surface without the formation of droplets. Unfortunately, if the moving liquid/gas interface breaks down, as often happens with all of the aforementioned drying methods, droplets form and evaporation occurs resulting in contaminants being left on the wafer surface. The most prevalent drying technique used today is spin rinse drying (SRD).
FIG. 1A illustrates movement of fluids on a wafer 10 during an SRD process. In this drying process, a wet wafer is rotated at a high rate by rotation 14. In SRD, by use of centrifugal force, the fluid used to rinse the wafer is pulled from the center of the wafer to the outside of the wafer and finally off of the wafer as shown by fluid directional arrows 16. As the fluid is being pulled off of the wafer, a moving liquid/gas interface 12 is created at the center of the wafer and moves to the outside of the wafer (i.e., the circle produced by the moving liquid/gas interface 12 gets larger) as the drying process progresses. In the example of FIG. 1, the inside area of the circle formed by the moving liquid/gas interface 12 is free from the fluid and the outside area of the circle formed by the moving liquid/gas interface 12 is the fluid. Therefore, as the drying process continues, the section inside (the dry area) of the moving liquid/gas interface 12 increases while the area (the wet area) outside of the moving liquid/gas interface 12 decreases. As stated previously, if the moving liquid/gas interface 12 breaks down, droplets of the fluid form on the wafer and contamination may occur due to evaporation of the droplets. As such, it is imperative that droplet formation and the subsequent evaporation be limited to keep contaminants off of the wafer surface. Unfortunately, the present drying methods are only partially successful at the prevention of moving liquid interface breakdown.
In addition, the SRD process has difficulties with drying wafer surfaces that are hydrophobic. Hydrophobic wafer surfaces can be difficult to dry because such surfaces repel water and water based (aqueous) cleaning solutions. Therefore, as the drying process continues and the cleaning fluid is pulled away from the wafer surface, the remaining cleaning fluid (if aqueous based) will be repelled by the wafer surface. As a result, the aqueous cleaning fluid will want the least amount of area to be in contact with the hydrophobic wafer surface. Additionally, the aqueous cleaning solution tends cling to itself as a result of surface tension (i.e., as a result of molecular hydrogen bonding). Therefore, because of the hydrophobic interactions and the surface tension, balls (or droplets) of aqueous cleaning fluid forms in an uncontrolled manner on the hydrophobic wafer surface. This formation of droplets results in the harmful evaporation and the contamination discussed previously. The limitations of the SRD are particularly severe at the center of the wafer, where centrifugal force acting on the droplets is the smallest. Consequently, although the SRD process is presently the most common way of wafer drying, this method can have difficulties reducing formation of cleaning fluid droplets on the wafer surface especially when used on hydrophobic wafer surfaces. Certain portion of the wafer may have different hydrophobic properties.
FIG. 1B illustrates an exemplary wafer drying process 18. In this example a portion 20 of the wafer 10 has a hydrophilic area and a portion 22 has a hydrophobic area. The portion 20 attracts water so a fluid 26 pools in that area. The portion 22 is hydrophobic so that area repels water and therefore there can be a thinner film of water on that portion of the wafer 10. Therefore, the hydrophobic portions of the wafer 10 often dries more quickly than the hydrophilic portions. This may lead to inconsistent wafer drying that can increase contamination levels and therefore decrease wafer production yields.
Therefore, there is a need for a method and an apparatus that avoids the prior art by enabling optimized fluid management and application to a wafer that reduces contaminating deposits on the wafer surface. Such deposits as often occurs today reduce the yield of acceptable wafers and increase the cost of manufacturing semiconductor wafers.